HALF MOON BAY, Calif. -- An 18-foot, surfboard-snapping killer wave smashes against the reef. Out of the icy bedlam scrambles Jeff Clark, his wetsuit steaming from his body heat.
"It's really not big enough yet," the surfer says, as another towering wave roars in behind him. "It's going to get better. It always does."Maverick's, as this once-secret surfing spot in northern California is called, can do a lot better than an 18-footer. Surfers risk their lives riding waves that can rise up to three stories high, break with unpredictable fury onto rocks known as the Boneyard, and pin them underwater for minutes.
It is here that one of the most extreme surfing contests in the world is about to begin.
A select group of surfers with beepers is waiting for Clark, the acknowledged king of Maverick's, to decide when the perfect swell arrives and the contest begins.
Some worry the competition will lead to tragedy. They fear it will attract amateurs to waves that have defeated the world's top surfers, including Hawaiian Mark Foo, who belly-flopped off his board and drowned in 1994.
"We're kind of worried that every yahoo with a surfboard is going to come out and try to ride the monster waves that killed Foo," said Deputy Harbormaster Dave Lewis.
Community pressure led to the cancellation of a larger promotional event that would have been open to any professional surfer.
Although the waves reach more than 50 feet during winter storms, surfing the biggest ones would be suicide. That's why organizers chose Clark -- who has surfed Maverick's for more than 20 years -- to pick a day when the waves are clean and rideable, not the furious building-size walls of water that have made Maverick's infamous.
The perfect day will occur sometime between now and New Year's Day and will bring "steady, 20-foot glassy waves and sunshine," Clark said.
Once the pagers go off, a handpicked group of the world's boldest big wave riders -- 16 surfers and four alternates -- will have 48 hours or so to get the best ride on the biggest wave. The purse is $10,000.
All have surfed the spot before. Twelve are from northern California, the rest from Hawaii and Australia. Some will have to fly into California before driving to the spot about 20 miles south of San Francisco.
Hawaii's Waimea Bay and Mexico's Todos Santos may have bigger waves, but the swells here are steeper and less predictable. They can disappear for 20 minutes, then sneak up -- wham, wham, wham, wham, wham -- piling on top of each other.
Surfers who fall and go under can be sucked down for several minutes and ground into the rocks in 50-degree water as the waves pound the impact zone. Hypothermia comes within minutes to anyone not wearing an extra-thick wetsuit. Sharks up to 15 feet long cruise the waters, occasionally taking a chunk out of someone.